Run With Holly Blog

Menu

2013 Weekly Workout Round-Up (June 10-16)

Hello there! Been spending a fair bit of RWH time scheming over some new plans and projects, so I’ve missed a few planned blog posts. BUT, it’s not too late to take a look at what happened last week. So let’s start there. [If you’re new here and want a basic introduction to the cast of characters and what we do over here, check out this summary post.]

Monday: BodyPump and Yin Yoga.

My afternoon snack. Obviously, someone was craving her freggies.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Chest Track in the new BodyPump release. First of all, it’s HARD. The instructor told us to load up our bars with more weight than normal. Being a rule-follower, I couldn’t help but comply. Then, halfway through the chest presses, my face crumpled into crying mode and I truly felt angry at the instructor. This was totally unfair of me, I know. No one FORCED me to load up the bar – I added the weight myself. The lifts are hard (VERY hard), but I was executing with good form (safely). Still, my whiny-cry-y face crept in and, had the instructor been standing over me at that moment, I probably would have made a few choice utterances. But since I’m there to work – not to an hour of my time lifting weights that are too light for me – the push was good. Painful, but good.

Yin yoga with Joyce is always a treat for me, and my hips always thank me for going. After class, I booked it out and headed to the airport. KMN had been traveling for work, and was on his way back to Singapore!

He had been in LA. He brought me back some Costco Loot: Walnuts, pecans, and coffee – just the essentials. 🙂

Tuesday: Run

The disadvantage to waiting half a week before doing your workout round-up is that you forget the details. Something happened on Tuesday that distracted me from my intended longer workout, but I can’t remember what it was. So you can just pretend I went skydiving or something…

Wednesday: Tempo Run & Spin

Roast the chicken in the morning, then just zap it (and the potatoes) in the microwave when you roll in at 9:30 PM, after spin class…

I am a firm believer in the tempo run. Tempo runs are great physiological training – they teach your body how to process waste more efficiently, so that you can run stronger, longer. They are also fantastic mental training – they force me (or you) to run in an “uncomfortable” zone for an extended period of time. I know this helps train me – and my runners – to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, and learn how to keep our brains from shutting down while our bodies still have more to give.

Now, don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t a heroic tempo workout: warm up, 2 x 6 min @ tempo, cool down. Just about 4 miles total. But I’m excited to start building on this foundation.

Thursday: BodyPump, Yoga

After Thursday’s workout, I ran into the supermarket (admittedly, the upscale supermarket) for some cheese. While there, I spotted this:

Yes, that is the price for one small bottle of Naked Juice [$7.40 USD].

Friday: Run, Spin

In retrospect, this seems quite funny – but Friday was “a bit hazy”. [This week has been more than a “bit” hazy, as Singapore is experiencing dangerously high levels of haze, thanks to forest fires in Indonesia.] I procrastinated my run until the very last moment, sneaking out just in time to run, shower, get lost at Buona Vista MRT station (I’m special that way), and meet KMN for a dinner date. I was craving Mexican (or even American-pseudo-Mexican) food, so we decided to try out Senor Taco at Star Vista. [No, this is not the same as Señor Taco in the US.]

Chicken enchiladas, rice, and beans.

Our analysis? The service was crummy, the food was decent, and the price was a smidge high. In the US, we probably wouldn’t be back. But given the difficulty of finding really good Mexican food in Singapore, we might be back here one day, when another craving hits…

For starters, I broke a sweat before I even left the house (at 5:30 AM). And yes, the photo is upside down. That’s the perspective from which I took it. Creativity, peeps. Creativity.

6.5 road miles very early, to meet up with GCA
[Drunk people along Scotts/Orchard Road = hilarious. I’ve already started my Saturday…they haven’t even ended Friday yet. We both found the other’s choice of “recreation” to be amusing. I didn’t talk about theirs as loudly as they commented on mine, though.]

2 miles around the southeast corner of the island with GCA[We were trying to find our way onto the Green Corridor at its start – the old Tanjong Pagar railway station. I talk a bit more about the Green Corridor in my 2013 Green Corridor Run Race Report. Unfortunately, the starting point is apparently fenced in and locked up on non-race-days, so we had to be a little creative and back track to find a place where we could get on without bush-whacking or drain-jumping.]

6.5 miles along the Green Corridor with GCA[Running with a friend is always excellent distraction; I was thrilled at how smoothly these miles passed, and suddenly I had 14 miles on my watch! Then, she showed me a very conveniently located Cold Storage, where we enjoyed a few minutes of air conditioning and bought some drinks. Hint: Soaked compression capris + intense air conditioning is almost as good as an ice bath, I think.]

Feet at the 15 mile mark. Yes, she found more mud than I did.

1 mile along the Green Corridor without GCA
[She headed home; I had a few more miles to cover.]

2 miles along Dunearn Rd
[I was going to hop the bus home anyway; I just ran from bus stop to bus stop until I hit my target distance. This was excellent psychological bribery – bus stops are a quarter to half mile apart, so “just one more bus stop” always seems feasible! And the truth is…stepping onto an air conditioned bus after a long run feels fabulous. And yes, out of respect for my fellow passengers, I brought a towel to sit on, and tried to find a seat by myself.]

The magic formula of 1 salt tab + 1 Nuun per hour worked its magic again! Folks, I’m (hesitantly) thinking that I may have conquered this electrolyte thing! However, there was some major chafe-age after this run, mostly in un-photographable areas. My post-run shower was…invigorating? startling? painful?? Thankfully, such things scab over pretty quickly, and I’m good to go…for about 24 hours, until it starts to itch. Faaaabulous. But – moving on!

Sunday: Cheer squad for the Pocari Sweat Run. Thanks to the way the course was designed (out and back over the Marina Barrage building, described and shown in my 2013 Venus Run Race Report), I was able to stake out a spot from which I could see runners ascending and descending both times they conquered the slopes. I cheered my fool head off, had a great time, met some awesome people, and gave lots of sweaty high fives.

He calls himself “Ah Siao” (meaning “crazy” in the local Hokkien dialect). He races dragging a tire (“tyre” to you locals) behind him, to raise awareness for Match For Life, a bone marrow donor program. He’s a bit crazy – but aren’t we all? Check out his Facebook page here!

As I walked back to the subway after the cheer session, I even remembered to take a Snapshots of Singapore photo, mostly for Jeano, who is often requesting such things, on behalf of all my non-Singaporean blog readers.

The buildings of downtown in the background, construction in the foreground. Such is Singapore…

The rest of Sunday was full of church, chores, and a Father’s Day Feast of local food. Not a bad way to end a decent week of training!

Total Workout Time: 11 hours, 26 minutes

Overall, this was a solid week for running, and my body felt great. I made certain to spend time stretching and rolling – my hips, legs, and feet gave me no issues at all. I was a bit bummed to keep missing swim workouts – but since I’m not doing any swim racing in the near future, this isn’t a huge problem (except that I enjoy swimming!).

My goal for this week (already in progress) is to keep my workout plans flexible, which may be necessary to fit in what I safely can, despite the serious haze. But we’ll talk more about that in this week’s Workout Round-Up. Stay tuned.

I’d ask for a “tire” or “tyre” vote, but I know the answer will be split purely along geographic lines…

If you’re a Costco shopper: What are your Costco “must buys”?

I am still craving Mexican food. So who’s meeting me for a Chipotle visit when I’m in the US next week (East Coasters only, unfortunately)?

Interesting. Because you’re actually one I wasn’t sure about. You’re a bit international, and I wouldn’t have known if the American or British influence won out in your education/history. Score one for the US of A! 😉

WHAT is this Chipotle business. (My heart, and probably an artery or two, belongs firmly to Anna’s Taqueria of Boston and their chile verde burritos.)

Oh, the Naked juices – that’s hilarious. I don’t know if the high prices are due to import markup or low demand. (Trust me on this – go to your nearest wet market, make a beeline for the fruit stall, and pick out the ripest fruit for cheap same-day juice blends.)

Chipotle…is just delicious. You’ll have to try it yourself, next time you’re back in the US. Maybe it can’t beat a local Taqueria, but it’s pretty darn tasty. And customizable. And simple. And enough for lunch tomorrow. And some of the most DELICIOUS tortilla chips EVER.

All of your food pictures look so good! Now I am hungry. I was thinking about doing tacos either Friday night or Sunday night… now I’m definitely fixing them one of those nights. Your drunk people encounter during the first miles of your long run sounds funny, especially the way you described it. The bus stops sound like the perfect way to break the last couple of miles of a long run up.

Costco is….totally for Americans. And incredibly anti-European. It’s a store where you buy everything in tremendous bulk (like, 24 rolls of toilet paper or paper towels, 6 pints of blueberries, 2 gallons of milk, etc), including 3 pounds of walnuts at a go. It is definitely geared toward American sized cars, houses, and desires.

But it is rather lovely to be able to bring 6 pounds of walnuts back to Asia…. (Where walnuts are only slightly less expensive than gold, apparently.)

You need a ‘membership’ to go, but if you ever find yourself in the US, see if you have a friend or know someone with a membership…the place is a spectacle in and of itself!

I do – I eat Honey Stingers and/or Sports Beans, about 1 pack every 60-90 minutes. I’m not big on the low-carb thing. 😉

I think you’re right…Snapshots of Singapore gets added to the Recurring Features.

Oh, I wish I could’ve gotten into the Costco sample thing. But we always ended up there on weekend afternoons, which was enough to (nearly) drive me over the edge. KMN is a browser, but I always wanted to plow through as fast as possible and get the heck OUT. TOO. MANY. PEOPLE. Although, I suppose it could have been viewed as training for Singapore. 🙂